Conventional accounts often conceive the genesis of capitalism in Europe within the conjunctures of agricultural, commercial, and industrial revolutions. Challenging this widely believed cliche, this volume traces the history of capitalism across civilizations, tenth century onwards, and argues that capitalism was neither a monolithic entity nor exclusively an economic phenomenon confined to the West. Looking at regions as diverse as England, South America, Russia, North Africa, and East, South, West, and Southeast Asia, The book explores the plurality of developments across time and space. The chapters analyse aspects such as historical conjunctures, commodity production and distribution, circulation of knowledge and personnel, and the role of mercantile capital, small producers, and force—all the while stressing the necessity to think beyond present-day National boundaries. The book argues that the multiple histories of capitalism can be better understood from a trans-regional, intercontinental, and interconnected perspective.
Kaveh Yazdani teaches economic history at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Dilip M. Menon is the Mellon Chair of Indian Studies and the director of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Contributors: Kent Deng; Dennis O. Flynn; Anne Gerritsen; Nelly Hanna; Henry Heller; Joseph E. Inikori; Leonardo Marques; Rudi Matthee; Dilip M. Menon; Masaki Nakabayashi; Alessandro Stanziani; Eric Tagliacozzo; David Washbrook; Kaveh Yazdani.